This Day in 1912 in The Record: Nov. 12, 2012

Tuesday, Nov. 12, 1912. Approximately eleven months ago someone killed four members of the Morner family on their DeFreestville dairy farm. Is last week's murder-suicide in Schenectady connected to this unsolved crime?

The Record reports that investigators in Schenectady and Rensselaer counties are considering the possibility. Rensselaer County district attorney Clarence Akin met with his Schenectady County counterpart yesterday to discuss whether Sandy Williams, a café employee who killed a friend, co-worker and possible partner in crime before killing himself, could also have killed the Morners in December 1911.

Ever since the four bodies were discovered on the Morner farm, laborer Edward Donato has been regarded as the prime suspect in the multiple slayings. At the same time, Donato's disappearance has been so complete, despite persistent reports of alleged sightings across the country, that some have suspected from the beginning that he may have been the fifth, undiscovered victim of the real killer.

"During the investigation of the Morner murder it was asserted several times that a negro who answers Williams's description to some extent was seen in the vicinity of the Morner farm," our reporter recalls."

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While our previous report of the Williams case indicated that Williams, along with his friend and future victim Louis DeSalle, only arrived in the area last spring in the wake of the Barnum & Bailey circus, "It is contended now that Williams probably knew of the Morner murder and that possibly he was the guilty party, and had told that fact to DeSalle, with whom he was very intimate."

DeSalle was arrested for burglary last month but received a suspended sentence. Williams became an object of suspicion for the police after visiting DeSalle at the jail frequently, and investigators suspect that he was DeSalle's partner in a string of burglaries in the Schenectady area last summer. Co-workers recount that Williams tried to convince DeSalle two weeks ago to move to New Orleans with him, following the abrupt termination of his correspondence with an unidentified Troy woman.

In addition, our writer notes that "Evidently, Williams was mentally disturbed, for he said that he had nothing to live for and that the white boy [Williams was black] whom he murdered held a secret sweeter to Williams than life itself."

Early in the investigation, detectives presumed that Williams wanted to leave Schenectady because he was feeling the heat for some crime he committed locally, but couldn't trust DeSalle not to talk if left alone. Schenectady officials "persist in the belief" that the crime was the Morner murders, but it's unclear whether Rensselaer County investigators take their hunch seriously.